Other Side of the Story
by Skate-815
Summary: What if Stuart's girlfriend didn't leave him for another woman? What if it was someone else a lot closer to home? My take on the recent ep with much help from Beccy. Stuart's POV. One shot. Quite short, with some sp, huxon, whatever you want to call it.


**Many thanks to Becki, my inspiration and my beta-er.**

**So shoot her for any mistakes, not me :P**

**My take on the episode a few weeks back that had Phil and Stuart working together. Many of the quotes are vaguly what they should be lol. **

**Tis from Stuart's POV, and is sympathetic towards him as he thinks abotu SP.**

"What makes you the authority on the mind of a jilted lover?" Phil asked the question I'd been praying he wouldn't ever since picking this case up, "It's happened to you, hasn't it?" A denial is quick to form on my lips, but he pays no heed, smirking to himself as if he's won some sort of private victory.

So a woman left me. Big deal. It's not like it's never happened to him. He'd taken pride in making it painfully obvious to me that he'd won Sam's heart, and then all of a sudden, it ended. Their relationship ceased to exist. Now something tells me that it wasn't his decision, seeing as he's always been the one who's head over heels with her.

"It was nothing" I say, knowing it is pointless to argue with him, especially over something so foolish.

"Someone left you for your best friend?" I almost want to laugh at his assumption. The one she cheated with was an acquaintance at best. Someone who had despised me from the day we met and I can't say the feeling was any less than mutual. She however had always been close to the person in question. Now I look back on it, I know now that I should have realised that they were just a little _too_ friendly towards one another. Still, it's easy to say that now with my 20/20 hindsight.

"Just drop it, okay?" I'm surprised when he agrees, momentarily, but I know that as soon as he gets bored, he'll be back on the topic, because bullying me is one of his favourite pastimes, second only to stalking Sam.

* * *

And just as I'd predicted he would, he turns to me in the corridor a full hour and a half later. Personally, I'm surprised he lasted this long. After it becomes clear that he is in fact not going to let this go, I relent, but only a little.

"It wasn't my best friend… it was hers." I see his eyes light up at this chunk of information, and I already know that this new joke at my expense will never become old with him.

"She left you… for another woman?" He's jumped to the wrong conclusion as I'd expected, being the chauvinist pig that he is, and I choose not to correct him. Let him think that I turned someone into a lesbian if it amuses him, while I know the truth.

If it had been anyone but him that I'd been confiding in, they would have known immediately what I meant, but being the arrogant fool that he is, he doesn't even suspect that 'the other woman' was him.

He, along with Sam believes that no one realised they had their little affair before Romania, but I know that it had to have been going on long before Phil just had to ruin my day by telling me. Sam left me, because she thought she had a chance with Phil, and that's the only reason I chose them to go to Romania. Because I felt sorry for Sam, knowing she would detest having to keep her relationship a secret, knowing that by doing this, I was giving her an out, a chance to say that she and Phil got together whilst on holiday, due to the pressures of the job.

Apparently that trip seemed to break them, rather than make them. Their split occurred just over a month later. And I can't say that I was sorry to see the end of them. A sickeningly happy Phil was difficult enough to deal with, without witnessing Sam's barely contained joy at having ended up with him.

Of course, just because he had the fortune of meeting Sam first, just because he had the chance to be there from the beginning, he and just about everybody else in this place thinks he has some sort of claim to her. I admit that I made mistakes. A lot of them. But I bet he wasn't exactly the perfect boyfriend either.

I never had a chance with Sam back then, because our relationship was tarred by the eternal little nagging voice that had to be present in the back of her mind. _What if Phil's watching? What if I'm ruining my only chance with Phil by being with Stuart…? What if; What if; What if?_ Well what if we could actually have been something, what if she'd given me the opportunity to properly try. Maybe then, I wouldn't have failed.

When Sam miscarried, I panicked. I can freely admit that our breakdown of communications was completely my fault. I was, and probably am too immature to deal with pressures such as that. But really, you've got to ask yourself, if that was his child. If he was thrust from his old, practised role as the sympathetic friend and into my position, would he really have coped any better than I did? The two children he barely sees serve as enough proof for me that he would not.

Phil and I are now pretending to like each other, but it's obvious to everyone who isn't in a position of authority that we still detest one another. We work together out of convenience and to keep our jobs, because we're both aware that we're treading on very thin ice after our recent brawl in the CID office. And we do it because we know it makes Sam's life that little bit easier. So we'll both continue to smile at each other, and probably work together because as much as I hate to admit it, we make a pretty good team when we try. Our rivalry spurs us onwards to achieve new levels that we couldn't reach on our own, and if it's one thing we both like to do, it's self improve, just to see how that effects us in Sam's eyes.

* * *

**Beccy even wrote the last paragraph for me, star that she is hehe. **

**So go on, make both our days by reviewing :P You know you want to:D**


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